Think Big About Employee Career Development by Starting Small

Talent leaders know we’re all on a sprint — racing to catch a future that’s constantly on the move. 

We’re increasingly aware that building a resilient and agile workforce starts by empowering employees with career development and future-ready skills. 

I’ve previously shared important shifts that LinkedIn is making to catalyze employee learning and career growth. Now I’d like to share a progress report on our journey, focused on how we’re testing and learning through new programs to support employee careers.

“Great acts,” said Lao Tzu, the Chinese Taoist philosopher, “are made up of small deeds.” 

To make progress on talent strategy, start with manageable experiments

Let me share a personal story about how I’ve learned the power of small deeds and the big impact they can make. 

For the record, I have a long history of taking big bites.

I grew up in China during the era of  the one-child family policy dictated by the government. Similar to many of my peers, I was surrounded by grandparents whose love language was food and who were overly protective. As a result, I was overeating and lacking the exercise I needed.  

Fortunately, after I left China for graduate school in London and started to gain more awareness about nutrition and fitness, I slowly made small changes that helped me feel far better and healthier. I still ate everything I loved, just not as much. I tried to do some form of exercise on most days. Over time, minor tweaks can unlock major transformations. Today, I weigh 16 pounds less than I did 30 years ago. 

We are taking a similar approach in order to unlock talent transformation at LinkedIn. Instead of getting weighed down with big bites (in the form of huge investment and multiyear initiatives), we’re taking small bites (piloting experiments) to create faster and measurable progress and determine the right places to make larger investments. 

UpskillIn fills a critical internal talent gap

Our first experiment started when we saw our Asia-Pacific teams were struggling to establish an early-career, entry-level sales pipeline. There wasn’t enough talent to fill the number of open roles. 

But it wasn’t for lack of interest: Employees in other areas of the company wanted to be in sales, but they didn’t know how to break in or they lacked the confidence that they could do the job. We needed to find a way to encourage internal mobility, support interested employees in making the leap, and hire based more on transferable skills and potential.

Enter our UpskillIn program. (We like to name programs with an “In,” recognizing LinkedIn’s high-level company vision of giving more people a way “in” to opportunity.) 

UpskillIn uses three steps to enable equitable access to core skills for entry-level roles and to build a continuous pool of internal talent: 

• First, employees are invited to attend an overview presentation about the role and connect with current sales representatives to obtain an insider understanding of the day-to-day responsibilities. If they remain interested, they are enrolled in a relevant LinkedIn Learning Path and a skills simulation workshop. 
• Next, employees can practice their newly learned skills through job-shadowing opportunities. 
• And finally, employees are encouraged to apply to roles using skills-based assessments.

Our first round of UpskillIn led to 10 successful internal hires and a healthy pipeline of 25 employees interested in future openings — a great start that suggested even more potential. 

We’ve subsequently launched new rounds of the program for account executive and account director roles. Moving forward, we have plans to replicate the program to address a wide range of skills and talent gaps in a number of business areas. 

ShadowIn inspires purposeful career development 

Our three-month job-shadowing program, called ShadowIn, is being piloted in Europe and the Middle East. Inspired by traditional, typically ad hoc job shadowing, it includes wraparound training and support to ensure employees get the biggest return on their investment of time. 

To begin, an employee registers as a “shadower” and identifies a career goal they have, a function they’d like to observe, or a specific person they’d like to be connected with. LinkedIn then matches the shadower to a “host” inside the organization. 

Before meeting, both parties are trained on how to make the most out of the experience: understanding intentions, setting goals, and reviewing the commitment. We also recognize the important role the shadower’s manager plays. The manager is brought in for a program debrief to learn what the employee got out of the experience and to help connect the ShadowIn experience to the overall career planning for that employee. 

ShadowIn has been a popular program for 18 months now. Our CEO and COO both model the importance of continuous learning and have been shadowed by employees. 

LinkedIn is currently weighing how to scale the program, potentially through automated, on-demand matching and scheduling.

FacilitateIn helps employees stretch by training others

Another program we are rolling out, FacilitateIn, equips interested employees with the training and resources to become polished public speakers and workshop facilitators — with the opportunity to dive deep on key developmental topics. (We all know when we teach, we also become better learners.)

In 15 hours over four weeks, a cohort of individual contributors attend workshops, complete LinkedIn Learning Paths, shadow workshop facilitators, and receive one-on-one coaching and peer feedback. Participants graduate ready to deliver one of the three talent development workshops: Introduction to 5 Dynamics (a popular team-building exercise), The Gift of Feedback, and Drive Your Development.

Through the first round of the pilot, we gained 12 new facilitators and producers who went on to deliver workshops in the subsequent quarter. This allowed LinkedIn to offer valuable workshops that addressed learners’ needs while freeing the core talent development team to consult and manage other projects. 

We are now working on expanding this program to include a cohort for director- and senior- level employees. We believe their real-life management experience will make them excellent facilitators for our manager academy .

Final thoughts: Even steps backward can represent positive progress

Remember earlier when I mentioned that I left China for grad school in London? 

That was not a small step — it was an exciting plunge into a new world. But I still had to navigate many tiny hurdles, like finding the library or the local grocery store, on a path that ultimately led me to a role in talent development at a global company.

As you chart your own way forward, you’ll likely take a few steps sideways, maybe even a step back, as you gain knowledge and improve. Regardless of the direction, I hope you’ll pause to recognize your progress. (Even a step backward is a learning moment toward your bigger goal.)

Let me end with another favorite quote of mine from the artist Vincent van Gogh: “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”